Tape decks, such as the compact cassettes and the larger eight track tape apparatus, provide an extremely convenient means by which knowledge can be stored. The modern tape deck is especially popular for providing recorded music, and many stores have found it profitable to offer a large stock of tape decks for sale to the public.
A large segment of the buying public is comprised of teenagers who like to browse through the tape decks for considerable lengths of time before making their selection of the particular tape they wish to purchase. A surprising number of these purchasers have discovered that the compact cassette tape deck is sufficiently small to enable it to be easily secreted in one's clothing, and accordingly, unlawful conversion of a large number of tape decks occur wherever tape decks are sold.
Many small stores, such as the modern neighborhood convenient stores, cannot employ more than one or two store personnel and accordingly, it is impossible to monitor all of the customers who may be present in the store at a given time. This lack of personnel encourages theft of the tape decks and for this reason many convenient stores refuse to stock tape decks because of the ratio of theft versus lawful sales.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a means by which tape decks can be displayed to the prospective purchaser, and at the same time discourage the individual tape deck from being stolen. It would be desirable that the tape decks be displayed in a manner which requires absolutely no supervision, which requires a minimum of storage space, and which enables the prospective purchaser to view a vast number of tapes without enlisting the aid of the store personnel. After the purchaser has made his tape selection, it would be desirable to provide a means by which the purchaser could pay the storekeeper and obtain the tape with a minimum expenditure of time. These desirable attributes are the subject of the present invention.